


That Old Spectre Magic

by Antipode



Series: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action & Romance, Biotic Shepard (Mass Effect), Espionage, F/F, Lazy Mornings, Morning Sex, Paragon Shepard (Mass Effect), Post-Canon, Post-War, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28244232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antipode/pseuds/Antipode
Summary: Inspired by "The Holiday Effect," where I found I really enjoy writing an older Shepard. I like where this is going, perhaps I'll continue perhaps not. Post-ME3 Destroy/Happy Ending, set in 2216 where Sybilla Shepard has retired from the System Alliance Navy, but the System Alliance Navy doesn't want to give up on Shepard.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Liara T'Soni
Series: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2070054
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

The bed was empty when Liara awoke.

Groggily rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she ran a hand lightly over the sheet, over where Sybilla had been wrapped around her all evening, and found it still warm. Her bondmate had never been the soundest of sleepers, and the horrific War and the terrible aftermath that had followed had been of scarce help. It no longer worried her quite so much that she rose so early, that try as she might she couldn't quite find the peace that she had fought so hard for, but there was always a twinge of sadness when Liara reached for her bondmate in a haze of sleep and caught only memory, only air.

Shrugging into a silk robe against the morning's chill, her scaled feet padded across the stone floor of the mountain cabin. Familiar smells were drifting in from the kitchen; strong black tea and stronger coffee, honey and dried sage, of fresh herbs and frying peppers, of soft cheese and freshly-baked bread. A sleepy smile flitted over her lips: this, at least, was a good reason for waking up early.

Sybilla was in the middle of three things at once, as usual. Black curls liberally peppered with silver pinned in place with a red scarf, the athletic top and shorts she'd retained from her 5AM run were speckled with flour from the flatbread was pulling out of the oven. More flour, and specs of chopped parsley and zatar, clung to the sweat-lined curves and slopes of her densely-muscled frame, a shotgun-blast of color amidst tawny skin and fading lines of black ink. No less than three books - actual books - lay open on the counter, photos of various recipes a hint at the morning's meal. Liara knew her love had her 'omni playing music at full volume, knew she'd been silent as a mouse rising from bed, and yet was entirely unsurprised when Sybilla, her back turned, gestured to the pot of tea on the stone kitchentop with a free hand. "Should be ready in another minute or so."

Liara said nothing, merely folded her arms and watched, leaning against the domed doorway that separated the sleeping and living areas, to watch her lover at work. They'd been here a week, amidst the breathtakingly beautiful mountains a few hundred kilometers from the birthplace of her human father. 'Qurnat as Sawda,' Sybilla had called them, had tried to teach her the proper pronunciation between playful kisses when her translator insisted on calling it 'Martyr's Mountain.' She'd much preferred the way it sounded coming from Sybilla's lips, the melifluous lilting of her father's tongue, so similar and yet so different from the clipped cant she was more used to hearing from humans, that language they called 'English.' Then again, she reflected with a growing smile, she much preferred anything so long as Sybilla's lips were involved.

It was beautiful here, serene, one of the few places on Earth still pristine even after three decades’ removed from the terrible conflict that had irrevocably shaped their lives. It was warm in the daytime and cool in the evening, the air crisp and clean, the sky a sapphire blue that blurred into soft pastels of pink in the hours when the sun set and rose. They had a garden in the front - honeybees and climbing roses, like the fog-shrouded memories of Sybilla’s childhood she saw in brief but bright glimpses inside her lover’s mind - and there was a small town, a market they could walk to, fresh fruit to buy and the price of honey-drizzled pastries to haggle good-naturedly over. There was little to no extranet connection, not that either of them particularly wanted it. Here, in the mountains of her ancestors, they could enjoy a temporary reprieve from responsibility, from painful memory, from expectation.

Humming softly to herself, her human was scorching peppers and soft cheeses, sprinkling a fine dust of herbs on freshly-baked flatbreads, sipping coffee - burnt nearly to black, as she professed to prefer - and the look of contentment, of peace on her weathered face could nearly bring Liara to tears. She poured a cup of tea, and was grateful for the warmth of the mug against her scales as she watched, melancholia washing away as she instead admired the defined lines and swells and curves of her bondmate’s body at work, of the flat planes of that lovely stomach and the corded, knotted strength in those sleek, supple shoulders and arms, felt a different sort of heat flush through her as she watched Sybilla kneel to brush something that had fallen from the floor, exposing a sweat-glistened neckline, the curve of a breast spilling from under a short tank-top.

“Why, Doctor T’Soni,” came a low voice in a sultry growl. “What big eyes you have…”

Realizing she’d been caught staring while biting down on a bottom lip, Liara tried to keep her tone mild as she took a steadying sip of tea, her expression one of feigned innocence. “Just admiring this wonderful view,” she murmured.

Her human crossed the kitchen in three long strides, and then those strong arms were around her, her cheekbones gently grazing the folds at the side of her neck. “Good morning, Bluebird.”

“Mmm,” Liara agreed, setting down her mug to run her hands greedily up Sybilla’s flanks. “I don’t mind so much to wake up in a cold bed when you have breakfast ready for me.”

“I was going to bring it to you in bed,” she chuckled throatily. “But as usual, I see you couldn’t wait. So impatient…”

“I am,” Liara admitted, nipping at Sybilla’s throat, along the angle of her jaw. “Particularly when you are involved.”

Her lover’s grin was insufferably smug. “Isn’t the saying ‘good things come to those who wait?’”

Liara silenced her with her mouth, her teeth lightly grazing, then pulling at those sweet lips. As if of their own accord her fingers began to unlace the strings on her lover’s athletic shorts, insistently pulling her backwards toward their sleeping quarters. “I’d prefer,” she murmured between kisses, her own robe sliding to the floor with a rustle of silk, “if that good thing came a little earlier.”

Breakfast grew cold. Neither of them cared.

Much later, Liara traced idle circles in the lines of her lover’s side, her head rising and falling with the rising and falling of her breast. She luxuriated in Sybilla’s warmth as if sunning herself upon a rock, her scales as flushed and sweat-glistened as her lover’s skin, their naked limbs as carelessly entwined with each other as they were with the sheets. A set of lovely, skillful fingers ran lightly over the tips of her crest, the spark of freshly-kindled desire pushing through the good ache of their lovemaking. She couldn’t help but smile, but press softly suckling kisses along the collarbone she rested upon. Her tracing hand dipped southward, running along the curve of a hip, the toned valley of a thigh, and a helpless smile filled her face as she glanced upward. Sybilla’s impossibly green eyes shone back at her, the crinkles at the corners somehow making her even more attractive to the asari’s eyes; perfect little imperfections, tiny creases won from years lived after the War. She had, strangely enough, always found the scar on Sybilla’s right eyebrow very sexy. These laugh lines were much better.

“Stop it,” Liara teased, her hand wandering along the length of Sybilla’s thigh.

That sexy-scarred eyebrow arched. “Stop what?”

“Looking at me like that.” She pressed another suckling kiss to her flushed skin, this time along the curve of a breast. “We are liable to spend all day in bed, at this rate.”

Those eyes flashed back at her. “That sounds like a terrible hardship.”

“Mmmmm,” Liara agreed. “There is one slight problem.”

“Who, Hackett?” Sybilla shrugged. From Liara's vantage point nestled between her breasts, it was an eminently watchable motion. “We’ll turn the lights off and pretend we aren’t home.”

Liara frowned slightly. “You know he is coming?”

Sybilla laughed. "You might be the most powerful information broker in the galaxy, my love, but very little happens within the Alliance navy without my hearing about it. Whether I want to or not."

The asari's smile was rueful. "I suppose it is only fair that you get to surprise me on occasion. Do you know what he is going to ask of you?"

"No, and I don't particularly care," she shrugged again. "Sooner or later they're going to have to come to terms with the fact that I resigned." She rolled her eyes, even as she pulled Liara upwards so she could return her kisses in kind. "You'd think three years would be enough."

"They are... rather insistent," Liara exhaled, the friction of her scales against her lover's skin like tiny sparks crackling against her belly and thighs.

"I'm just going to tell him no, like I've told everyone else they've sent," Sybilla murmured, her mouth even more distracting, wandering along the side of Liara's neck. "And we'll send him on his way. It would have to be absolutely Earth-shaking to pull me away from this."

"And if it is?" Liara pulled away slightly, a tremor of trepidation in her voice, wavering in her eyes. "If it is Earth-shaking?"

Sybilla sighed. "I've saved the galaxy enough times, haven't I?"

A soft blue hand cupped her cheek, the underside just slightly pebbled, slightly cold to the touch. Softer blue eyes looked at her bondmate longingly. "You have, my love. You've done more than anyone should have. But it will never be enough for them." She stretched a thumb out to gently stroke the laugh lines she loved so, at the corner of those green, green eyes, green like the grass in an Armali grove. "I am tired of the asking. Of them taking from you. You're given them enough. More than enough."

A cloud passed over that grove. "You think if it's bad enough, I'll offer to help."

"I think you are selfless," Liara chose her words carefully, "and dutiful, and loyal, and that these things make it easy for a man like Hackett to pull you back in. He would not be here himself if he didn't think otherwise."

"You've never trusted Hackett, have you?" It wasn't a question.

"I trust our family," Liara replied firmly. "Beyond that, I have seen everyone in the galaxy try to use you for their own ends."

Sybilla sighed again. "You're probably right, as always."

"I am," Liara agreed, stealing a long kiss to take away the sting. "As always."

This time her bondmate's sigh was one of contentment. "What did I ever do," she mused, a hand lightly stroking the side of Liara's face, a thumb straying across the edge of a crest, little fingers dragging pinpricks of electricity along her scales. "What did I ever do to deserve you?"

"That is easy, my love," Liara grinned, pushing herself up on all fours. She left a suckling kiss in the middle of Sybilla's collarbone, and then another, slightly lower, and then another lower still. Pinning her lover to the bed with the heat of her gaze, Liara slid her lips downward, trailing heated, fluttering kisses down Sybilla’s stomach, over the ridge of her hips, along the inside of her thigh. The Alliance and the Council could try to tempt Sybilla Shepard all they liked: Liara was confident she could make her wife a better offer. "You saved the galaxy."

Fortunately for the two of them, it wasn't until the early afternoon that both Liara and Sybilla's omni-tools pinged with Taix's alert, warning them that someone was on their way. The petite, animated asari huntress was courteous enough to step loudly and with purpose as she escorted her human guest up the dirt path and towards the low, long mountain-dwelling. Her throat-clearing cough and loud knock at the door bordered on the insolent, however - as did the gleeful grin when she entered to find the pair of them still flushed, Liara in a silk robe and Sybilla in sweats and a loose grey University of Serrice hoodie. The old Admiral still had a spring in his step despite having marched well past his eightieth year, though Liara reflected he must have been sweltering under the weight of a heavy wool navy longcoat. Keen grey eyes twinkled with amusement, and his scarred lips were split into a smile.

“Shepard. I’d ask how you knew to have your bodyguard meet me, but I think I already know the answer. Good afternoon, Doctor T’Soni. How are you? How are the girls?”

“Both finishing their first semesters at Serrice,” Liara answered smoothly, putting the kettle on and pretending like her scales weren’t still tingling from Sybilla’s touch. “Thank you for asking. I am well, also. It is good to see you in good health, Steven.”

“Coffee’s on, Admiral,” Sybilla drawled, her voice dripping with insolence. “Least I can do is get you a cup. I hear it’s a long flight back to Alliance HQ.”

The Admiral chuckled. “You aren’t even interested to know why I’m here?”

“I can guess,” the raven-haired woman shrugged. “Either the Alliance needs me, or the Council needs me, or likely both.”

“Both,” Hackett confirmed. “Joint Alliance-Council op.” He reached into his longcoat. Taix beat him by a country mile, the diminutive asari drawing and covering him with her pistol with an alacrity that impressed even Sybilla, by the amusement in her eyes. Hackett brought his hand out, slowly, scowling. “You want to tell your bodyguard I’m going for a data-pad, not a weapon?”

“She has a name. It’s Taix.” Sybilla’s smile only grew at Hackett’s annoyance. “Thank you, Taix, but that won’t be necessary.” Her hand flashed a series of signals; Liara recognized it as huntress handtalk. Whatever she said made Taix’s face light up in a grin as she slipped the pistol back under her leathers.

Muttering under his breath, Hackett drew the data-pad out and brought up a grainy image; four humans, clustered around a sleek, black metallic orb. “Thirty years later and these things are still falling out of the sky.” He held the ‘pad out towards Sybilla. “This was taken in New York, six days ago. Four Indocs. Advanced stage, all of them. We aren’t sure initial point of exposure, but they came into the city via shuttle, killed the crew and passengers. We found the shuttle drifting on the river, so we know they’re still there.”

“Embarrassing,” Sybilla mused, ignoring the data-pad in favor of pouring coffee into a pair of earthenware mugs. She passed one to the Admiral.

“Not if it’s handled quickly and quietly.” Hackett arched an eyebrow. “We have a team assembled. They just need a leader.”

“I don’t work for you anymore,” Sybilla retorted. Liara loved her for it.

“It’s a three-day job, tops,” Hackett argued. “You’d be on advisement, monitoring and directing two fireteams from a CIC offsite.” He set the coffee down and thrust the data-pad at her again. “You wouldn’t even need to carry a sidearm.”

“Good, because I haven’t in three years.” Sybilla paced, restless. “There are other Spectres, other N7s. Give it to Kamille, she’s good.”

“We did.” Hackett’s smile slipped. “Entire squad, KIA or compromised. That’s why we’re sending two teams, with remote observation.”

“You asshole,” Sybilla swore, her countenance darkening by the moment.

Liara laid a gentle hand on Sybilla’s shoulder, forcing her to stop pacing and sit, forcing her own face into a mask of serenity to hide the anger boiling inside of her. “Steven-”

“She wasn’t good enough,” the Admiral cut in. “Not as good as you, Shepard. We need you, girl. This is a bad one, the worst yet. We don’t need a Spectre. We need the Spectre. We need that Shepard magic.”

“I’ve given the Alliance forty-six years,” Sybilla snapped. “I’ve died twice. I’m out, Hackett. I’m done. Let me love my wife and raise my children in peace.”

“Look, you’re the only one that’s ever survived Indoctrination.” The Admiral stood, slipping the data-pad back into his coat, unread. “And you’re the best squad commander I’ve ever seen, maybe the best small-unit commander in the history of modern warfare. I think you can save lives, here, make a difference. Isn’t that what you enlisted for in the first place? Are you really turning your back on that?”

There was a hollow crunch, and a sound like shattered glass. All eyes snapped to Sybilla, her pants stained brown from spilled coffee and fragments of broken porcelain. She looked very far away as she studied a fat drop of blood oozing from her palm, where a razor shard of pottery had sliced into her, a shard of the coffee cup she’d crushed into splinters and powder with her bare hand. Her face was dead calm. But it was the eyes that gave her away; those warm, green eyes with the crinkled laugh lines in the corner, so full of life and love and joy. These weren’t the eyes that looked to Liara with affection and with need, weren’t the eyes that gazed adoringly at their two beautiful daughters. These were the eyes that Liara hadn’t seen in years: the cold, calculating eyes of a mountain cat on the prowl, of a hunting hawk about to swoop. They were the polished green gems of a sniper rifle’s scope, penetrating and dispassionate.

They were the eyes of a killer.

“I think you should leave, Steven,” Liara said in a low tone. The anger and fear now naked on her face brooked no disagreement.

Hackett glanced between asari and human and opened his mouth to say something else. Instead, he simply said “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll leave you to talk things over, Shepard. Doctor T’Soni.” With a polite nod to Taix, he saw himself out.

Liara's eyes flashed to their bodyguard. Taix nodded once and stepped out after the Admiral. Liara only wanted him followed, monitored, but at the moment she wouldn't have minded if Taix had just killed him and been done with it. She snatched up a dishtowel from the counter and pressed it to Sybilla's palm, brushing away fragments of porcelain.

"Be careful," Sybilla murmured, her voice unfocused and distant. "Don't cut your feet."

"Sybilla…" She stroked her bondmate's cheek, her insides churning with worry.

"I'm okay." Strong, fingers threaded through hers; that favourite tapestry, blue and tawny interwoven. "I'm angry at myself that I let him get to me like that. But I'm okay."

"He has known you for many years," Liara reminded gently. "He knows how to manipulate you. I know you have a great deal of respect for him, my love, but… Steven Hackett is not your friend. He was your superior for nearly five decades, and then you handed him your resignation. You owe him nothing - not loyalty, not obligation, nothing."

"Maybe not," Sybilla admitted, "But-"

"I know what you will say," Liara interjected. "You will say how you've never failed to answer the galaxy's call when people were in need. You will say how you don't feel worthy of your retirement, of your happiness, while others suffer and are endangered. You will wonder what Anderson would have done, or would have advised you." She sat down in her lover's lap, heedless of the spilled coffee on her robe, and wrapped her arms around Sybilla's neck, her head nestled tightly in its rightful place on that well-defined shoulder. "You are worthy of this happiness, this peace. You deserve this."

"I don't feel like it," Sybilla muttered. "I feel selfish."

Liara tilted her lover's chin downward so she could look into her eyes. "I stepped away from the role of Shadow Broker when you retired from the navy, as we agreed upon. That was a responsibility I ceded, and a very great one, in order to spend my life with you, with our daughters. Would you call that selfish?"

Frustration clouded her eyes. "Of course not, but-"

"But nothing," Liara chided, not unkindly. "And there is your health to consider. You are sleeping more soundly, if not for as long as I would like. The nightmares are getting better. Your energy is returning. Before you gave up the mantle of your navy commission, do you remember a time where we made love three times in a day?" She smiled, lovingly, to take away the sting of the rebuke. "You need this, my love. And I need you, all of you."

Sybilla let out a long sigh. "You're probably right, as always."

"I am," Liara murmured against her neck. "As always."

"I was right about one thing, though."

"Oh?" The asari feigned surprise. "And what would that be?"

"We should have turned all the lights off and pretended we weren't home," came the teasing reply.

Liara giggled and fluttered small kisses along the edge of her jawline. “What is the human expression? ‘Even a broken clock is correct twice a day?’”

Sybilla just grinned and leaned into the kisses, rubbing their foreheads together. “You think you’re soooo funny, don’t you?”

Liara caught her gaze and felt a surge of heat flash through her. It was Sybilla again who was staring adoringly down at her, those mesmerizing emerald eyes deep and inviting. Liara wanted nothing more than to roll around in the warm, green grass in those eyes, to forget about the killer that prowled somewhere, to make Sybilla forget, too. “I have my moments.” Sybilla just looked at her, adoringly; crinkled crow’s feet and a broken nose dusted with freckles, a forehead just starting to set with worry lines and a scar across her eyebrow, full lips and a gap-toothed smile, tanned and tawny skin and a shock of black and silver curls, the most beautiful woman in the world. Liara cupped her cheek, lovingly ran her fingers along the edge of her jaw, pressed her own lips against hers, tasted them. She smelled like sweat and sex, like freshly baked bread and zatar, tasted like coffee and spice and heat and need. Their bodies pressed in close, lines and angles fitted against each other like the pieces of a puzzle slotted together, and it felt like home to Liara. She moaned softly as the kisses became more insistent, as she ran her tongue along the edge of her tooth gap, as she felt Sybilla bite down and pull on her own lip, one hand wandering up along the folds at the back of her neck, the other trailing downward to the small of her back.

“We can always pretend,” Liara murmured against those lips, “that we had never gotten out of bed.”

She felt Sybilla's smile. "Turn the lights off? Pretend nobody's home?" She felt the smile grow wider. "Go for number four?"

"Four?" Liara laughed as she kissed back at her incorrigible bondmate. "Who says I want to stop at four?"


	2. Chapter 2

She was halfway done her shopping when she spotted the tail.

She'd been coming to this cluster of stalls ever since they'd arrived in northern Lebanon, and the old woman with the olive stand had latched onto Shepard like a long-lost granddaughter, eager to compare her Lebanese olives with the Palestinian varieties she'd grown up with, fascinated by the tall woman's scars and her tattoos, and gushing over the beauty of her asari wife and children. She was fairly certain the old woman didn't know who she was. Shepard's poor Arabic gave her away as not being one of the locals, but in an oversized grey sweater and a pale plum-colored headscarf she could have been anyone, from anywhere.

"You have an admirer," the woman said with a knowing smile, indicating the large man Shepard had noted earlier that afternoon, browsing the orange cart. "He will be disappointed to learn he is no competition."

Shepard returned the wry grin as she eyed the man again. Too pale and too tall to be a local, and those ridiculous sunglasses set him apart from the other tourists. She supposed he was good looking, if you were into that sort of thing, but the man was more Kaidan’s type than Shepard’s. He was trying too hard to be inconspicuous, clutching a small bag of oranges he'd been bullied into buying earlier. He had glanced over at Shepard a number of times, but she’d dismissed it as a man with wandering eyes. But as they made brief eye contact and he quickly dropped his glance away from her - from someone  _ behind _ her, now that she thought about it - Shepard wasn't so certain.

“They are persistent though, aren’t they?” the old woman grinned. “I tell you. In my youth, my first husband? He would not leave me alone. My brothers would beat him off with a stick.” She nudged Shepard playfully. “You? With such muscles? I think you could do your own beating.”

Shepard laughed. “Me? I’m just a pretty face.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially, still watching the man try to find a spot where he could continue to observe her without being seen. “My wife is the scary one.”

“Strong and beautiful,  _ mashallah _ ,” the old woman agreed. “She is of the long-lived ones, yes? You will bless her with many more fine children.”

“I hope so.” She pressed a handful of coins into the woman’s wrinkled hand, far too many, and shushed her protests with an affectionate pat to the cheek. “ _ Asle _ . Next time I’ll bring Liara and we’ll have tea.”

“ _ Maa salama _ ,” the kindly woman smiled as she handed her two jars of olives.

“ _ Ya’tike l’aafieh _ ,” Shepard responded, ducking out under the canvas shroud of her stall. She pointedly ignored the glances from the thick-necked man, now sitting at a small table and pretending to read a data-pad. He only had a light coat on, nothing bulky enough to conceal a hardsuit or anything larger than a sidearm, but Shepard didn’t even have that. She made a show of inspecting the purchases in her cloth bags for a moment while he ordered a coffee, then began walking abruptly in the direction he’d been glancing at, to a pretty dark-skinned woman with a shaved head feigning an interest in textiles while a shopkeep yammered at her. She, too, stuck out; a glittering nose-ring was looped to her ear with a delicate chain, and the arrogant ease she carried herself made it clear she could handle herself. She was trying very hard to watch Shepard without looking like she was watching Shepard and doing a poor job of it. The half-turn she was forced to make as Shepard walked toward and then past her revealed the squat frame of a submachine gun under the loose indigo shawl around her shoulders.

There would be at least one more, she knew; likely from an elevated position, like along the orange rooftops that made Bsharri glow like a topaz among the snow-capped Lebanese highlands. Shepard slowed her pace as she walked, noting the man and the woman hastily abandoning their earlier pretenses to follow her from a respectful distances. They were working in a team, so they certainly weren’t Spectres - not that a Spectre would have been so incompetent as to have been made by an olive-merchant. That left Alliance commandos and a professional hit-squad. One would try to bring her in to talk to the brass again, try and get her where she wouldn’t have Liara in her ear as her smarter, better half. The other would try to isolate and kill her.

With a few taps to her ‘omni, she called Liara, back at the house. If her pursuers were any good at all, they’d be monitoring her comms, or at least be trying to. Her bondmate’s face sprung to life in an orange filter, hovering just over her forearm. Even with a poor signal, even after more than thirty years together, her beauty never failed to leave Shepard dry-mouthed and stammering for a moment. “Hey, Bluebird.”

“Hello, love,” her asari said brightly. “Nearly finished? I can put the tea on, for you.”

Shepard kept her voice neutral. “Can’t find fresh parsley anywhere. I might be late for dinner.”

Understanding flashed across those stunning blue eyes instantly. There was the tiniest trepidation in her voice, but only the tiniest. “Out of season, perhaps. I can have Taix come around with the skycar..?”

“No.” Shepard shook her head. “But remind her we have company tonight.”

“Remind me: how many extra places at the table am I setting?”

She hesitated. “Three or four. I’m not sure if everyone is coming.”

“Three or four, of course.” Concern furrowed her brow. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Soon as I can. Give my love to the girls.” She smiled, confidently, wishing her bondmate would worry less. “I love you, Bluebird.”

“I am yours,” Liara said emphatically, automatically.

Shepard's heart ached as she kissed two fingers and pressed it to the lips of the hologram before ending the call. She knew Liara would be beside herself until she was safely home, knew she'd have felt safer having sent Taix to watch over her anyways, but Shepard didn't want Liara left alone under any circumstances. The two asari would not be taken unawares in the event that there was another team zeroing in on their location. If her pursuers had been listening in, maybe they’d be able to piece together that she’d made them. Or maybe not. She checked their positions: twenty or thirty feet apart, flanking her, pretending to browse while keeping her in full view. They had to know she was onto them. Right?

A grin came unbidden to Shepard's lips. Time to find out.

Walking briskly, she strode through the market, doubling back to near where she'd picked up the tail. Predictably, both pursuers 'coincidentally' followed. Turning up a side street that lead to the market's exit, she abruptly ducked down a short alleyway, loping into a run as soon as she was out of sight, turning another corner and taking cover behind a dumpster. She knew she had only seconds. 

Her two shadows came sprinting around the corner, hot on her heels. They couldn't quite see her, yet, the dust-swirled alley and the echoes of the souq masking her position.

"... the hell did she go?"

"Can't have gotten far…"

The big man had taken point, with the woman a cautious few steps behind, her submachine gun unholstered at her side. There was an undercurrent of nervousness in their voices. Big man had unbuttoned his jacket, revealing a slim sidearm.

"Are you sure she went down this way?"

"She's here. Watch out, if she picked up our tail…"

A clipped laugh. "Relax. She's like eighty years old. I think I can handle one old woman..."

Shepard struck like a serpent, springing forth from cover to slam a palm-strike into the man's solar plexus. Before he could even fully double over she'd grabbed him by the collar, stomping down on his instep with a thick-soled boot and in the same motion ramming her elbow into his nose. He collapsed bonelessly against her, screaming, with a  _ crunch _ of cartilage and a spray of blood. His partner was scrambling to bring the submachine gun to bear. She was quick, but not quick enough. Shepard leveraged all her weight and violently shoved the man into her, sending both assailants tumbling to the ground with a thud and a cry. Curling her hand inward, she pulled it backwards to her, the memetic gesture accompanied by a pinprick of ice into the back of her skull and a swirl of dark violet light about her palm. The machine pistol leapt off the ground and into her waiting hand.

"I'm sixty-two," Shepard grumbled indignantly.

  
  


++Mason? Do you read?++

Messner buzzed the heavy’s ‘omni irritably for the third time. His skin chafed from the sand and dust, and he was somehow boiling hot and freezing cold at this altitude, in this God-forsaken desert. The level of secrecy and the layers of deniability around this mission had intrigued him at first, had drawn him to pass up what would have been an easy deployment into the Traverse to join this team of special forces operatives on a job he wasn’t allowed to know anything about until it was well underway. He had expected an ancient Prothean relic, or batarian extremists, or rogue operatives planting a bomb, or something. After hours and hours setting up a rooftop observation on the world’s most boring ex-Admiral, he was ready for a new assignment.

“Barely even got a good look at the asari,” he muttered to himself. “Either of them.”

They’d been watching her for three days. Or rather,  _ he’d _ been watching her for three days, while Mason and Nicky had mostly just gotten drunk and eye-fucked each other in the close confines of the safehouse Hackett had put them up in. “Don’t let her out of your sight, and keep me appraised of her movements,” the old battleship had barked at them, before he dropped the bomb of who it was, precisely, they were observing. Admiral Shepard? Not  _ the _ Admiral Shepard?

Except observing the retired Admiral, still-technically-Spectre, and three-time (to believe the vids) Savior of the Galaxy in her twilight years was hardly the high-danger, hush-hush assignment Messner had thought he was buying into. He didn’t know what Hackett’s angle was, other than possibly voyeurism, but Admiral/Spectre Sybilla Reem Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy, had a routine that only Admiral/Spectre Sybilla Reem Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy, could care about. Every morning at 4:30am she woke up, did a series of stretches, and then ran several kilometers at high altitude, with multiple stops for other bodyweight exercises. When she returned to the small, isolated mountain dwelling she shared with her asari bondmate and bodyguard, she showered, took her coffee in the kitchen, and woke her wife at almost precisely 7:05am with tea and breakfast in bed. They stayed in the house until 11am, whereupon they went to the local market, sometimes walking, sometimes taking the skycar driven by their bodyguard. Messner had noted that the bodyguard tended to cleave to the bondmate, and not Shepard. It had been his idea to try and take her on a market visit when she was alone.

The rest of her days were spent largely the same way her mornings were: she worked out, she cooked, she read, her and her wife poked about in the garden out front, they went for hikes and walks. It was saccharine, if tedious - and besides, she was good enough looking for an older woman, he supposed, but watching Commander Shepard get play with his asari lover from through a sniper scope was hardly titillating.

++Mason, you have to turn your channel open,++ Messner groaned into his ‘omni. Had that idiot forgotten how to transmit again? The thick-necked redhead looked like he could wrestle a krogan, but didn’t appear to have much worth speaking of between his ears. It was a wonder he knew how to operate his kinetic barrier.

Finally, his ‘omni pinged back. ++Mason here,++ the bruiser grunted. His voice sounded thick, slurred. Had he been drinking already? Hackett was going to have all their asses if they’d lost her.

++You’d better not be drunk, Country Strong,++ Messner warned. ++Where the fuck is she? Did you lose her?++

There was a pause.

++We got her,++ Mason said slowly. ++Got her zip-tied in an alley. Need a hand with transport. Meet at my coordinates.++ And then the comm channel closed.

“Idiot,” Messner breathed. Zip-tied, in an alley? The woman may have been in excellent shape, but she had to be in her seventies by now. Mason couldn’t handle her himself, couldn’t handle her with Nicky for backup?

Folding up his sniper rifle, Messner scrambled down off the roof and tracked his ‘partner’s’ last ‘omni ping, heedless of the awkward looks the gangly, blond, blue-eyed soldier received from the locals. With how much the three of them stood out, it was a wonder they hadn’t been made. It was another piece that didn't fit. A three-man team to watch a retired Admiral buy olives in some backwater? What the hell was Hackett playing at?

He rounded the corner of the alley, still grumbling to himself. A dust-spotted dead-end, lined with back entrances to buildings, piles of garbage, a dumpster.

"Hackett will have all our asses if you've-"

He walked straight into the punch.

Pain bloomed in Messner's throat as a knife-handed strike took him in the trachea, gagging and nearly choking the sniper and filling his vision with stars. Before he could fully process what was happening, a strong hand seized a fistful of hair and propelled him bodily into the dumpster, ringing his head like a bell and sending painful, violent vibrations through his body. Gagging and half-blind, he scrabbled in the dust for a weapon, anything, until a boot in the gut kicked all the remaining fight out of him, left him whimpering and choking in the dirt.

A shadow fell over him. A shadow in a plum-colored headscarf. Shepard wasn't even breathing hard from rag-dolling him about, and dimly, through the pain, Messner could see two sets of legs amidst the garbage piles that looked suspiciously like Mason and Nicky's. Unarmed, she'd dropped three special forces operators in seconds. Who the hell  _ was _ this woman?

The shadow crouched down next to him. "When you've caught your breath," Shepard said in a voice like iron, "you're going to call Hackett and arrange a meet."

  
  


By the time Hackett arrived at the small, crowded cafe across from the market, Shepard's nerves were shriller than a ship's whistle.

The aged Admiral seemed unsurprised to find her alone, unharmed, and not in the custody of his soldiers, sitting with her back to a wall and watching everyone coming and going. At this time of day the early afternoon market-goers were just starting to head home, stalls beginning to close, and the cafe was likewise emptying. She feigned nonchalance, fingers drumming idly on the handle of her mug of coffee. The other hand had a stolen SMG trained on Hackett from the moment he stepped in.

"So you met some of your team, then." The bastard had the audacity to smile as he took a seat, brushing off a server with a wave. "I take it they're still breathing?"

"Mostly," Shepard shrugged. "They'll recover. Let's keep those hands above the table, Hackett."

"Whatever makes you feel more comfortable, Shepard," he drawled, maintaining that infuriating smile as he very slowly rested both hands on the tabletop. "You're the one with the gun."

"I'm the one with the gun," she agreed in a low voice.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" He leaned closer, eyes twinkling, voice lowering conspiratorially. "I understand it's been awhile. The weight, it's comforting, isn't it? Just a hunk of metal, but it's amazing how different you feel on the one side of it, compared to the other. And that's the secret, Billie. You're always on one side of the gun… or the other."

"Did you really think those amateurs would be able to bring me in?" Shepard tried to keep the raw fury out of her voice and failed. "I'm insulted."

"I had to see if you still had your edge." The Admiral shrugged. "It's been three years."

"Looks like my edge is still pretty sharp," Shepard retorted. "Can't say the same for your guys. Did the "no" last time not get through to you? Why are you pushing this, Hackett?"

"Because we need you, Shepard." Hackett's voice turned serious. "The Alliance needs you, the Council needs you. Hell, the galaxy needs you."

Shepard sighed. "Haven't I given enough?"

"It's never enough," the old man said bluntly. "It takes and takes and takes until there's nothing left, this life of ours. But it's the life  _ we _ chose. We do what the others can't. We shoulder that terrible burden so the rest of the galaxy sleeps peacefully at night. That's our  _ job _ , girl."

"Don't lecture me on duty and responsibility," she snarled. "I hunted Saren when nobody would back me, I fought to stop the Reapers when nobody believed they even existed. So I think I know a little about shouldering terrible burdens, you sanctimonious prick."

"I know, and that's why this - this reluctance - surprises me." Hackett spread his hands. "You had plenty of opportunities to retire after the War. Hell, when you got put back together for the second time, nobody would have second-guessed you for quitting, then. But you didn't. You saw a job unfinished, you saw a galaxy that needed rebuilding, and you put your big girl pants on and you did it." He thrust a stubby finger at her. "Well, that job isn't finished. And that galaxy still needs you. And here you are, ass end of nowhere-"

"I have a family, Hackett." Shepard's voice was ice. "I have two amazing daughters I'd like to spend time with before I go. And Liara… I made her mourn for me  _ twice _ , Hackett, after I promised her I'd be back, after I promised her an "after." Do you know what this life does to her? Do you even care?"

"Do I care about one asari, weighed against the rest of the galaxy? I don't," Hackett said bluntly. "Listen close, girl. You need the Alliance and the Council as much as we need you. Those protections go both ways. Your "loving wife" was - probably still is, for all I know - the most well-connected and powerful information broker in the galaxy. There's a lot of blood on the hands of the Shadow Broker. And let's not forget the Aratoht Incident. The two of you, if you were anyone else, you'd be buried so deep you'd never see the light of day again." He shook his finger at her. "Thus far the Council and the Alliance have protected the two of you. Your resignation removed one of those protections. Now you're still technically a Spectre, but that can change. And without that… you're exposed. Your wife is exposed. Your family is exposed. Is that what you want?"

"Admiral," Shepard said in a low, cautious voice. "Let me make something perfectly clear before you say another word. If you ever threaten my family again, I'm going to kill you. Do you understand?"

"Don't try to-"

" _ Hackett _ ." She felt her eyes shift, saw the nearly imperceptible involuntary recoil from the old man as her gaze slid from a cool green to the flat, doll's eyes of a merciless killer. She had done her best to bury the Red Wind of Illyria, had done her best to lock away the Butcher of Torfan. But that other Shepard, the War Shepard, was always lurking just below the surface, a shadowy shape behind a pane of frosted glass, a green-eyed ghost with blood-stained claws.

"If you ever threaten my family again, I'm going to kill you," she repeated, glacially slow and crystal-clear. "If the Council threatens my family, I'll kill them. If anyone threatens my family, I'll kill every single operative they send, and then I'll hunt down the ones who sent them. If you go to war with me, Hackett, I'll give you a war like nothing you've ever seen. Don't push me, Hackett. Let it go."

The Admiral was silent for a minute, weighing this. His jaw worked soundlessly, his fingers drumming on the tabletop. "I didn't want to have to play this, Shepard, but you aren't giving me a choice," he said finally. "When you turned me down the first time, we approached several other candidates as backups. After what happened to Major Kamille, we went for someone with a little more wartime experience." He let out a small sigh. "I got word this morning that the candidate is ready to take on the mission. If you say no again to me, now, right now, I'll wash my hands of it, and the program will never bother you again." He stared at her from beneath hooded eyebrows. "But you should know who's next man up."

Shepard felt her blood boil. "You  _ wouldn't. _ "

Hackett shook his head. "Just like you, Shepard, I'm willing to do whatever's necessary to maintain peace and order in this galaxy. If you don't take this assignment, General Alenko does. You do with that what you want to." He smiled bloodlessly. "Are you going to kill me, now? Gun me down in this cafe? Or are you ready to get back to work."

"What happened to you, Hackett?" Shepard shook her head in disbelief. "You used to be someone I thought I could trust."

"Grow up, Shepard." The Admiral stood and adjusted his cap. "You're an asset. An expendable asset. Just like me, just like Alenko. And I'll use anyone and everyone to get the job done." He stared down at her like an executioner. "You've had three days. You have until the end of the week. Monday morning, Echo goes after those four Indocs, and either you're in the CIC, or Alenko is." He cocked his head. "Nice fellow, Alenko. He's got a husband and a few kids, too. But you knew that, of course. You ask yourself how sharp his edge is, after all these years, and then you call me when you've decided to do the right thing."


End file.
